Memorializing Racially-Motivated Deaths Beyond Lynchings

Visitors at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala. The memorial includes some 800 markers, one for each county in the U.S. where lynchings took place, documenting the killings of more than 4,400 individuals between 1877 and 1950

Beth J. Harpaz
/ AP Photo

Originally published on August 21, 2018 4:25 pm

From the late 1800s through the middle of the 20th century, lynchings were a widespread form of racial violence against African-Americans in the southern United States.

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WUNC military reporter Jay Price retraces the story of one of Private Booker T. Spicely was shot and killed by a Durham bus driver after he complained about having to move to the back of the bus.

A new memorial in Alabama honors and memorializes those who died at the hands of brutal lynch mobs. But many racially-motivated killings during that time were not officially lynchings.

WUNC military reporter Jay Price retraces the story of one of those cases. Private Booker T. Spicely was shot and killed by a Durham bus driver after he complained about having to move to the back of the bus. The incident came more than a decade before Rosa Parks would protest staying in her seat. Price revisits this piece of Durham history with host Frank Stasio and reflects on the risk of letting these stories fade with time.